Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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318. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of schools taking part in the pilot of in-school therapy. [31668/25]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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The enhanced in-school therapy supports pilot is an integrated pilot programme which sees the delivery of enhanced in-school therapy supports provided by the Health Service Executive (HSE) Children’s Disability Network Teams and will be supported by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE).

The pilot commenced in September 2024 in Cork and Dublin on a phased implementation basis for six selected schools. An additional ten schools, in Cork, Dublin and Galway were announced as part of the pilot on 8th November 2024 with phased onboarding of schools to the pilot over the course of the 2024/2025 academic year.

The focus of this pilot is to provide the effective delivery of enhanced in-school therapy supports to children in selected special schools, managed in a coherent and collaborative manner through the relevant stakeholders. This pilot seeks to provide an integrated model of service ensuring that all stakeholders, including special schools staff, children and families have access to high quality integrated therapeutic supports in alignment with supports provided through health and social care services.